Can women tolerate pain better than men? This study says no.

Women have to endure a lot of pain in their lives. Think of menstruation or childbirth. And men? They're not used to it, is the general consensus. Is it true that women are more resistant to pain than men? That seems obvious, but a new Canadian study shows that's not entirely true.

Pain research is regularly conducted. Increasingly, the Dutch are using (strong) painkillers . A recent study shows that pain feels worse when you don't know it's coming. This new pain research compared the pain processing of men and women. And a startling conclusion emerged: men and women not only experience pain differently, their bodies also process it through completely different biological mechanisms. The research results were published in the National Library of Medicine .

Researchers at McGill University had 18 men and women aged 20 to 33 immerse their hands in ice-cold water for six minutes. While the participants rated their pain on a scale of 0 to 10, their heart rate, blood pressure, and muscle nerve activity were measured.

In the first half minute, pain, heart rate, and blood pressure all rose in everyone. Afterward, clear differences emerged: in men, pain was primarily associated with a higher heart rate, while in women, muscle nerve activity increased more sharply. This suggests that the nervous systems of men and women regulate pain differently.

It should be noted, however, that this is a relatively small study, so no definitive conclusions can be drawn. More research is needed.

The idea that women are stronger at tolerating pain is a persistent myth, according to Jeffrey Mogil, a professor of pain research at McGill University. "It's completely false," he told the Washington Post , which published an article about the study. "This has been studied hundreds and hundreds of times, and yet it keeps coming back. In my opinion, the question of who is more sensitive to pain has been answered as clearly as any biological question."

The brain also shows clear sex differences, particularly in the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (sgACC), an area involved in pain processing. Karen Davis, a senior scientist at the Krembil Brain Institute in Toronto, emphasizes:

“Whatever way we look at the pain system in the brain – activity, connections with other brain areas, or oscillations – we consistently find that this brain area functions differently in men and women.”

In women with ankylosing spondylitis (a form of arthritis in the back), Davis and her colleagues observed that this brain region is more strongly connected to areas that process sensory information. As a result, women with the same condition often experience more disability and a heavier disease burden than men.

According to Mogil, everything in the body seems to differentiate between men and women when it comes to pain: from brain circuits to immune cells. His laboratory demonstrated as early as 1996 that sex-specific genes exist that influence the experience of pain. He later discovered that immune cells and pain sensors (nociceptors) also function differently in men and women.

Hormones also play a crucial role. Before puberty, migraines are equally common in boys and girls. After puberty, the prevalence in women doubles. The intensity of chronic pain can also vary significantly during the menstrual cycle.

In short: men and women experience pain very differently because it's processed differently in the body. The differences are fundamental, says Sean Mackey, director of Stanford University's Pain Clinic. "These studies give us a clear message: the differences between men and women aren't simply stronger or weaker. They're often completely different wiring."

He advocates that doctors and researchers take these biological differences seriously. "If we treat men and women as if they were the same, we miss crucial opportunities to improve care."